The Last of the Titans
by Kirk Hastings
Summary: SEE the origin of Captain Marvel! SEE the origin of Isis! SEE these two fantastic TV superheroes battle a gigantic menace from the dawn of time!


**CAPTAIN MARVEL and ISIS**

**vs.**

**THE LAST OF THE TITANS**

_**(Based on the Filmation TV program**__**s **_**Shazam! **_**starring John Davey, and **_**The Secrets of Isis **_**starring Joanna Cameron, produced from 1974-1977 on CBS-TV)**_

**by Kirk Hastings**

**PART I**

_**Chosen from among all others by the Immortal Elders — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury — Billy Batson and his mentor travel the highways and byways of the land on a never-ending mission: to right wrongs, to develop understandi**__**ng, and to seek justice for all. In time of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the Immortals to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word: **__**SHAZAM!**__** ... a word which transforms him in a flash into the mightiest of mortal beings — **__**Captain Marvel**__**!**_

**T**he large motor home, which had been traveling at a leisurely pace down the mountain highway, soon slowed down and came to a stop behind a line of cars that were backed up behind a half-dozen red cones set across the roadway.

"Look, Mentor!" Billy Batson told the motor home's driver. "There's a couple of police cars with lights flashing up ahead. It looks like there may have been an accident!"

The older man leaned out of the side window of the motor home.

"I think you're right, Billy!" he agreed.

When he leaned back in again, the boy had already disappeared from the cab.

There had indeed been an accident. Two cars had side-swiped one another coming from opposite directions around a tight curve, and it had sent one car off the road and into a tree. The front end of the auto had been smashed in, trapping the driver, a young woman, inside.

Two police officers hovered around the car. "She's unconscious, Al," one officer reported to his partner. "I don't think she's badly hurt, but her legs are pinned under the dashboard. There's no way we're gonna get her out!"

"We've got an ambulance and a Jaws of Life on the way, Sam," the second officer replied. He had just gotten off his car radio. "We'll just have to hold tight 'til they get here."

"Yeah, but it's gonna take a while for them to get here, up on this mountain road!" the first officer said. Al shook his head. There was nothing else they could do but wait.

Just then the sound of whooshing air could be heard.

"Look!" Al cried, pointing upward.

Coming down out of the sky was a muscular figure clad in a red costume, with a white cape trailing out behind him.

"It's Captain Marvel!" a bystander yelled.

The two police officers stared in astonishment as the costumed figure landed on the ground right in front of them.

"What's the situation here, officers?" Captain Marvel asked them.

The men couldn't believe what they were seeing. Nevertheless, Al managed to reply: "There's a young woman caught in that car. Her legs are pinned under the dashboard. We're waiting for a – "

He trailed off as Captain Marvel turned and ran over to the car. Assessing the situation he reached inside the car's open window with his right hand and began to push on the dashboard.

The two officers ran up beside him. "Wait! You can't –" Al began. But as he watched, the dashboard began to crumple under the pressure Captain Marvel was exerting on it. Soon the woman's legs were completely exposed.

Captain Marvel tugged on the car door, but it was also jammed shut. He tore the door off and set it on the ground. Then he gently lifted the woman out of the car. He carried her over to a nearby patch of grass and set her down.

"I think she'll be all right now," he said.

Without another word he turned and leaped up into the air.

The two officers stared as Captain Marvel dwindled in the distance.

"I thought that guy was just a legend, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster!" Al said.

"Yeah, me too," was all Sam could say.

Minutes later Billy Batson came walking down the side of the road and climbed back into the passenger seat of the motor home.

"Everything's okay, Mentor," he said. "Captain Marvel took care of the problem!"

"Good!" the older man replied. "We can always count on him to save the day, can't we?"

Billy pondered this statement. Within a few minutes the traffic ahead of them started to move again, and they continued on down the highway.

When the traffic had thinned out, Billy turned to Mentor again, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Mentor, don't you think it's time you told me who the Elders really are - and why they gave me the power to become Captain Marvel?" he said. "After all, I did become 21 last week. And we've been traveling together on the road for almost 3 years now, since I first went on extended leave from my job as a news reporter for a TV station."

After a moment, Billy added another question: "And who exactly is Captain Marvel, anyway? Is he me? Is he what I will be when I grow up, or is he someone else altogether? Was he around before I was? And whatever happened to my parents?"

Mentor pulled the motor home off the highway onto a flat shoulder area where he could safely park it. Then he turned to Billy.

"Yes, Billy, you're right," Mentor told him. "You are old enough now to know the answer to those questions. I mentioned that very fact to the Elders recently, and they agreed that you should know exactly who they are. And who Captain Marvel is."

Mentor turned the motor home's engine off. "Billy, you and I have been together for a long time now," he continued. "I've never told you anything about your real parents before, because, quite simply, I don't know who they are. The story I got from the orphanage where you were living as a very young boy was that your parents had been killed in an automobile accident. The Elders had only just recently revealed themselves to me for the first time, and they directed me to go to that orphanage, apply to become your guardian, and raise you according to their instructions."

"What were their instructions?"

"To teach you the value of truth, justice, patience, self-control, and compassion for others."

"Did you have another life then, before you took me in?"

For a moment Mentor looked a little wistful. "Yes, I did," he replied. "But that's not important any more. My previous life ended when I met you, and a new one began."

Billy was dying to ask more questions about Mentor's background, but he could tell that Mentor did not want to talk any further about that subject. Perhaps some other time he could get more information out of Mentor about his former life.

"Is your name really Mentor?" Billy asked.

"No, I was not born with that name. The Elders gave me that name when I took you in. I've gone by it ever since."

"Who exactly are the Elders, and why did they choose me to become Captain Marvel?"

Mentor looked at the large globe-like object studded with different colored lights that was mounted on the dashboard of the motor home.

"I think you had better ask the Elders that question, Billy."

Billy stared at the communication device. The lights on it were now blinking, which meant that Billy had permission to contact the Immortal Elders.

"Oh Elders, fleet and strong and wise, appear before my seeking eyes," Billy recited.

In his mind's eye, Billy now stood in front of the Immortal Elders, in a weird place that looked like the inside of a huge cave. He had been there many times before. The walls, floor, and ceiling all shimmered with a strange, fluctuating light. There were six Elders above him on a wide ledge. Old Solomon sat on a massive stone throne. Around him stood Achilles, Atlas, Zeus, Hercules, and Mercury.

"We know your questions, Billy," Solomon intoned in that deep, echoing voice of his. "And we have decided that the time is now right to answer them for you."

"Where exactly is this place?" Billy asked. "And where did you all originally come from?"

"You live in a world of 4 dimensions, Billy," Solomon continued. "Height, width, depth, and time. We live in the 7th Dimension, a totally different plane of existence from yours. Once we all lived on the Earth as ordinary mortals, as you now do. But when each one of us reached the end of our life spans on Earth, we were translated into this dimension where we now reside. Here we exist perpetually, without aging and outside of time as you know it. That is why we usually know what will happen to you in the near future – time, including both the past and the future, is simply another dimension that we have the power to transcend."

"How were you translated into the 7th Dimension?"

"By a great wizard whose name is the same as the word used to transform you into Captain Marvel – Shazam," Zeus answered. "Even we know little about him, except that he is more than 3000 years old, and has great powers. Some say he is the last of a great super-race that existed before the Great Flood that destroyed the rest of mankind. Over the centuries he used each one of us to right wrongs and to do good in the world. Now, through us, he is using you."

"Who exactly is Captain Marvel? Is he me as an adult?"

"No, Billy," responded Hercules. "He is a person unto himself. Many centuries ago, during the first century A.D., he was a captain in the Roman Army named Marvellus. He was a strong man, a courageous fighter, and possessed an exceedingly noble character. When it came time for him to die Shazam translated him into the 7th Dimension, where he lived on. At that time Shazam endowed Marvellus with many great powers of his own, and he has used him many times over the centuries to fight for righteousness and justice. But Captain Marvel must have a physical 'host' on Earth in order to cross over to there. You are the most recent of a long line of individuals who have made it possible for him to cross between our dimensions. In fact, you are _named_ after another young man who lived in the 1940s who was the previous intermediary for Captain Marvel."

"There was another Billy Batson before me?" Billy asked, incredulous.

"Yes," Atlas answered. "He was also a news reporter, but for a radio station. When a deadly ancient weapon called the Golden Scorpion was stolen from a tomb in Siam, Shazam gave Billy the ability to transform himself into Captain Marvel in order to retrieve it. When the Golden Scorpion was finally recovered and destroyed, Billy permanently lost the ability to become Captain Marvel. More than a decade later, when Mentor took you from the orphanage, your real name was unknown - so we instructed him to name you 'Billy Batson' as well, as a homage to your 'ancestor'."

"Why do you keep choosing young men and teenagers to be the go-between for Captain Marvel? Why not choose a full-grown man?"

"Because young people tend to be more trusting, more morally malleable, and more open-minded than full-grown adults, who are often set in their ways," responded Mercury.

"What exactly happens to me when Captain Marvel takes over?" Billy asked. "How come I remember everything that he does?"

"Because the two of you literally become one person," Achilles explained. "Just as it is possible for the dimensions of height, width and depth to physically exist together at the same time, so it is also possible for beings from your dimension and ours to physically co-exist together in the same place at the same time. When you merge, both of you continue to exist inside the same physical space. Your outward appearance changes because Captain Marvel's physical presence is the far stronger of the two."

This was an amazing concept that caused Billy to stop and think about it for a moment. Finally deciding that it was something that he would probably _never_ fully comprehend, he asked: "Why did you specifically pick me to be the new mediator for Captain Marvel?"

"Because we knew that you would have the necessary character traits that we needed to shoulder such an awesome responsibility," Solomon told him.

Billy felt a great glow of pride inside after hearing this response. He hoped that he would continue to deserve the considerable faith and trust that the Elders had invested in him.

**PART II**

**"**_**O my Queen", said the sorcerer to Hatshepsut, "With this amulet you and your descendants are endowed by the goddess Isis with the powers of the animals and the elements. You will soar as the falcon soars, run with the speed of gazelles, and command the elements of sky and earth."**__**...**__**3000 years later, a young science teacher dug up this lost treasure, and found she was heir to **__**The Secrets of Isis! **__**And so, unknown even to her closest friends, Rick Mason and Cindy Lee, she became a dual person: Andrea Thomas, teacher; and Isis, dedicated foe of evil, defender of the weak, champion of truth and justice!**_

**A**ndrea Thomas drove through town on her way to the post office to mail some letters. As she drove she found herself thinking about Captain Marvel, whom she had recently teamed up with to regain possession of a weather control machine that had been stolen from its owner.

She had been thinking about Marvel a lot lately. _What a magnificent man, who possesses superhuman powers equal to my own_ she thought. _But who was he really? Where did he come from? What exactly was his connection with young Billy Batson? How did he get his amazing powers? Who was the man named Mentor?_

So far, none of her questions had answers. But she decided she'd definitely like to know more about this mysterious superman.

Her reverie ended as she parked her car just down the block from the post office. As she did she noticed a large plume of smoke billowing out of some of the windows of the building next to it.

"Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed out loud. The building was obviously in the early stages of a fire. Some passersby had stopped to stare, and already some people were running out of the structure.

Andrea jumped out of her car and sprinted into a nearby alley between buildings. When she was far enough in not to be seen by anyone on the street she took a necklace hanging around her neck out from where it was hidden under her blouse. On the necklace was a circular-shaped amulet that had two horns sprouting from either side of it. Once the amulet was exposed she spoke the words _"O mighty Isis!"_ out loud.

There was a flash of light, and a strange cloud enveloped Andrea. When it cleared away Andrea stood revealed as the super-heroine Isis, now wearing the amulet on an Egyptian-style collar around her neck. A duplicate of the amulet was also on a tiara she wore on her forehead, and in the center of her wide leather belt.

"_O zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly!" _she recited. As she did she began to lift up off the ground. She rose upward, finally landing on top of the building she had been standing next to.

From her high vantage point she surveyed the rapidly-developing situation across the street.

"_O mighty clouds please send your rain to quickly fall and quench the flame!" _she shouted.

Suddenly a large mass of dark, roiling clouds gathered overhead, even though the sky had been perfectly clear a moment before. Rain began to fall from them.

"_O might__y winds now do conspire to blow the rain and quench the fire!" _she commanded.

The rain became a downpour. As it did the wind picked up and began to blow the rain sideways, so that it blew into the open windows of the burning building. Within minutes the fire had been extinguished.

"_O mighty wind and blowing rain, from your tempest now please refrain!"_ Isis ordered. Within seconds the rain ceased to fall, and the wind stopped blowing. The clouds scattered, and the sun came out once again.

Her mission accomplished, Isis ran and leaped over the edge of the roof she was standing on. She floated downward, until she was once again standing on the ground in the alley.

"_O__ mighty Isis!"_ she repeated. Again there was a flash of light and a swirling cloud around her. When it cleared she was once again Andrea Thomas, high school science teacher.

She walked out of the alley. There were now a number of people standing around, soaking wet and staring at the building, wondering what had just happened.

"It's a miracle!" one person was saying. "That rain and wind just came out of nowhere, and blew the fire out!"

"I've never seen anything like it!" another person asserted.

Andrea smiled a knowing smile as she walked into the post office building.

# # #

Later that evening Andrea sat in the living room of her apartment. She pulled the amulet out from under her blouse and stared at it, reflecting on her adventure of that afternoon.

"This amulet certainly does have amazing powers," she thought. "Yet, ever since I found it buried in the sand in the Valley of the Kings on that expedition to Egypt 2 years ago, I've never really understood how it works – or why I was the one that found it."

Suddenly, the amulet began to glow with an odd, pulsating radiance. As Andrea held it, a beam of light flashed out from it onto the wall of her apartment. The beam coalesced into an image of the Valley of the Kings projected on the wall.

"_Andrea Thomas - you have been a faithful holder of the amulet for many months now,"_ echoed a strange, booming voice in her head. _"Thus, you now are entitled to the answers to your many questions."_

THE STORY RELATED TO ANDREA BY THE AMULET:

Thousands of years ago, when Egypt was not yet at its height of influence and power, a spacecraft from another world landed there, its occupants consisting of four alien astronauts: one woman and three men. The woman was called Isis, and the men Osiris, Set, and Thoth. Osiris was Isis's husband, Thoth an engineer, and Set a social observer. Osiris was the expedition's leader; Isis served as the resident computer expert, as she was completely familiar with the information systems aboard the craft. Her job was to log all information gathered by the crew on their studies of Earthian civilization and culture.

Walking among the Egyptian people the space observers were immediately taken for "gods", around which an entire religious mythology was eventually to grow. Osiris did his best to try to teach the Earthmen in the ways of wisdom and social harmony, and his wife assisted him. Thoth assisted Isis on the occasions when Osiris returned to the spacecraft to contact their leaders back on their home planet. A man named Ra was the leader Osiris most often spoke with, and once when an Egyptian peasant witnessed Osiris speaking to Ra on a two-way visual subspace hookup, the man returned to his village to tell his people that this Ra must be the "king" of the "gods", who lived amongst the stars of the sky. The myth of "Ra, the god of the sun" and "Ruler of all the other gods" grew from this incident.

Among the sophisticated equipment used by the space travelers was a small, highly miniaturized "mind over matter" unit, which enabled its user to focus his brain waves to perform what seemed to the primitive Egyptians to be "magic" – i.e., controlling the weather, duplicating some of the characteristics of animals, storing and dispensing information, etc. It was one of the most important pieces of equipment on the ship, and had been placed in the care of Isis for the voyage.

The space observers, fascinated with the culture they had discovered, spent more time living among the Earth people than they had originally intended to. Isis eventually gave birth to a son, Horus, who was also regarded by the Egyptians as a "god". But Set had become convinced that the Earth people could be easily manipulated to serve his own ends; he vowed to somehow make himself their king. But first he had to eliminate his fellow space travelers. Through deceit and treachery he eventually succeeded in killing Osiris, forcing Isis and her newborn child to flee. Many times Set tried to find and kill Isis - and Thoth too. When Horus grew to manhood the battle continued between him and Set. In the process the astronauts' spaceship was destroyed, leaving all of them permanently stranded on Earth.

Set was eventually defeated by Horus, leaving only himself and Isis left of the original expedition (Thoth having succumbed to disease and old age). Before meeting her own death Isis, who had protected and kept hidden from Set the mind over matter unit, gave it to her son, who buried it in the desert for safekeeping - but not before she had recorded in it the entire story of their ill-fated expedition.

The royal sorcerer of Hatshepsut, Egypt's first woman Pharaoh, had observed the burial of the device and, recovering it after Horus had gone, presented it to his queen as "a gift of the goddess Isis". Utilizing the powers of Isis, she used the amulet for many years to help her people. When she finally passed away, the amulet was returned by her royal sorcerer to its original resting place in the desert.

Ra never organized another expedition to Earth was because he mistakenly assumed that the astronauts had been destroyed by the Egyptians, rather than through Set's ambitions. He decided then that the Earth was too primitive and hostile a place to risk sending any more expeditions to.

Andrea was then told by the amulet that her original mysterious urge to organize an expedition to Egypt that led to her finding the amulet was really due to the fact that she was a direct descendant of Isis and Horus—it was partly her semi-alien heredity that had caused her to become mentally "aware" of the device that had so many times been activated and used by the brainwaves of her long-dead mother. Over three thousand years after Isis had last used it, the extraordinary device had, in effect, "called" to the one person on earth with a similar mind-pattern: Isis's distant daughter in time.

The amulet was designed to be voice activated, and the unique vibrations of Andrea's voice pattern speaking Isis's name was the "key" needed to reactivate its mechanisms. After finding it Andrea had decided to create a separate identity for herself in order to use the amulet for the same purpose her ancient mother had used it—to help those in need. In respect to her ancestor, with the amulet's help, she created an alter-ego for herself called _Isis_ to carry on that purpose. Through the process of matter transmutation, the amulet was able to instantly garb Andrea in a distinctive outfit modeled after the ancient Egyptian dress her ancestor had once worn on Earth.

The beam of light and the voice from the amulet faded, leaving Andrea alone with her thoughts.

**PART III**

**B**illy and Mentor were eating their lunch on a picnic table in a small park when the lights of their motor home parked nearby began to blink on and off.

"Uh oh – it's the Elders again," Billy said. He got up from the table and walked over to the RV. He climbed inside and sat down in the front passenger seat. He waved his hand over the blinking communicator on the dashboard, and repeated the phrase that caused the Elders to appear to him: "Oh Elders, fleet and strong and wise, appear before my seeking eyes."

Within moments he once again found himself in that bizarre place called the 7th Dimension, facing the six Immortal Elders.

"Greetings, Elders," Billy said.

"Billy, a crisis of the utmost urgency has come up which requires the immediate attention of Captain Marvel," Zeus replied.

Billy had never heard one of the Elders sound so concerned before.

"On a small, uninhabited island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, the last of an ancient race called the Titans has been imprisoned for thousands of years. His name is Hyperion, and he was chained far beneath the earth long ago in a deep cave by myself and my fellow Olympians after a terrible war called the Titanomachia. But recent volcanic activity in the Aegean has broken Hyperion's brass chains, and he is now free. He must be stopped before he can reach one of the nearby inhabited islands and cause enormous destruction."

"I'll send Captain Marvel to help at once!" Billy told him.

"But even Captain Marvel may not be able to cope with this deadly menace on his own, Billy. He will need help," Zeus replied.

"But who can help with a crisis this serious?" Billy asked.

"You must call upon Isis to assist you," Zeus advised.

Billy nodded.

# # #

Her last class of the day had just let out when Andrea Thomas heard a strange whooshing sound. She turned just in time to see Captain Marvel fly in through the window and land in her classroom.

"Captain Marvel!" she exclaimed.

"Andrea, I need your help," Marvel told her. She listened as the World's Mightiest Mortal quickly explained the situation to her.

"Oh my goodness, of course I'll help!" she told him. Wasting no time she pulled the ancient Egyptian amulet out of her blouse.

"_O mighty Isis!"_ she cried. Within moments she stood revealed as Isis.

"It's an awful long way to the Aegean Sea from here," she said. "How can we get there quickly enough to help?"

"The Elders told me that they would create a dimension warp for us along the way," Marvel explained. "That's kind of like a space-time warp, which will get us there much faster than if we flew the entire distance the conventional way."

"Wonderful! Then let's go!"

Marvel turned and leaped out of the window into the sky, and Isis called upon the powers of the wind and flew up after him.

They headed in the direction of the far-distant Mediterranean Sea. Sure enough, just as the Elders had promised, after they had flown only a few minutes suddenly they found themselves soaring over the wide Aegean, somewhere east of mainland Greece.

"There he is!" Marvel announced.

Isis looked down. Far below them was a giant, brutish-looking man, swimming ponderously through the water. He was huge; Isis estimated him to be about 50 to 60 feet in height. He was massively built, and his arms were as big around as cedar trees. He had a long, grizzled beard, and long stringy hair that was matted to the back of his thick neck. His only clothing was what appeared to be a fur loin cloth of some kind wrapped around his middle.

Isis immediately knew that this battle was not going to be an easy one.

"Look – he's heading toward those islands ahead!" Marvel shouted.

A short distance away was the Santorini island group, known in ancient times as Thera. Now it was one of Greece's most popular modern tourist destinations. The four islands were the remains of a giant volcanic crater that had collapsed and filled with water almost 4000 years ago. The main island, which was once the eastern side of the volcano's rim, was shaped like a backwards "C". Another smaller island, Therasia, was once part of the volcano's western rim. It was located on the northwest edge of the giant central lagoon that had once formed the crater's bowl.

The Titan entered the lagoon from its western side. He swam to the center of it, where there was a small uninhabited volcanic land mass about a mile wide jutting above the water. He hauled himself up onto the barren piece of land and shook himself off like a gigantic dog.

Captain Marvel and Isis flew down toward the giant. As they did he roared at them, flinging his huge arms up at them, swatting at them like they were a couple of flies.

One powerful swipe caught Captain Marvel. He was forcefully knocked backwards, and tumbled through the air over the water toward the northern part of the main island of Santorini, which was more than a mile away. That part of the island's coastline was a steep cliff that jutted almost a thousand feet up above the bay. On the top rim of the cliff sat the small whitewashed village of Oia, a popular destination for tourists from all over the world.

Captain Marvel smashed into the side of the reddish cliff face, embedding himself into the volcanic rock.

Horrified at this turn of events, Isis soared after Marvel. Once she reached him she hovered in front of him, grabbing him under his arms. She then yanked him out of the cliff face. This done she gently lowered him down to the beach hundreds of feet below. Once there she laid him on the black sand beach, made up of mostly volcanic pebbles, and then rushed over to the water's edge. Cupping her hands she scooped up some of the water. She then returned to Marvel, where she splashed the water onto his face.

Abruptly Marvel came back to consciousness, shaking his head back and forth to clear it.

"Wow – that was some wallop, wasn't it?" he quipped, half smiling.

"I'll say," Isis replied, trying to hide the concern she felt. "Are you all right?"

"Sure, I'm fine," Marvel said. He got back to his feet and dusted himself off.

He looked up. "Uh-oh – that's not good!" he suddenly pronounced. He pointed out into the bay.

Isis turned. Apparently not satisfied in knocking Captain Marvel for a loop, the giant had jumped into the water, and was now swimming directly toward the beach where Marvel and Isis stood. Unfortunately, there was a large cruise ship sitting in the bay. When the Titan swam by it, the huge wake he created started rocking the ship back and forth at a dangerous angle, threatening to capsize it.

Captain Marvel took a couple of steps and then launched himself back up into the air, headed out toward the cruise ship. Isis followed him, commanding the winds to once again lift her off the ground.

Reaching the dangerously pitching vessel, Marvel pressed his hands against the side of its hull and pushed, trying to stop the rocking motion. As he did, Isis hovered nearby.

"_O mighty winds that roam so free, now hold back and calm the sea!" _she pronounced.

The wind started to blow across the surface of the bay in such a way that the waves that the Titan had created were abruptly smoothed out. That, and the pressure exerted on the ship by Captain Marvel, leveled it out again, stopping its side-to-side movement.

That threat averted, Marvel pushed off the ship and flew back up toward the top of the cliff above the beach he had quit. Isis followed after him.

They both landed on the top of the cliff near the edge. Directly behind them was the village of Oia. The streets near the cliff edge were now crowded with tourists and locals, gaping at the giant Titan in the bay.

Within minutes the angry giant reached the small beach at the bottom of the cliff. He clambered up out of the water and immediately started trying to climb up the cliff face, scratching and pawing at it with his massive hands and feet.

Even though they were a thousand feet above the Titan, the sight of him trying to get up the cliff side still panicked the onlookers, and they started running in every direction.

"What can we do?" Marvel asked Isis. "Eventually he's going to carve out some hand and footholds, and he'll probably get up here. Once he does that's the end of this town."

"I have an idea," Isis told him. She turned and faced the bay.

"_O storm and power of electricity, send a lightning bolt for me!" _she recited, as she waved her arms toward the sky.

Suddenly the sky became dark, and huge black clouds began to roil overhead. The Titan was beginning to make some progress up the cliff face, but abruptly a huge jagged lightning bolt zig-zagged out of the sky and, with a loud boom, struck the Titan directly on his back.

The giant let go of the cliffside and fell downward to the beach, landing on his back with a ponderous _thud_. Then he lay still.

"Great, Isis!" Marvel said. "You got him!"

"Yes, but now what do we do with him?" she replied. "We can't leave him there!"

"I'll take care of that!" Marvel told her. "We'll take him back to where he came from!"

He leaped off the cliff edge and plummeted down to the beach. Once there he worked himself under the small of the giant's back and began to slowly lift the Titan up off the sand.

Isis couldn't believe her eyes when Marvel finally succeeded in lifting the immense giant up over his head. After he had done this, even more amazingly he began to slowly rise up into the air with his staggering burden. When he had risen to the same height as the cliff edge he started to move off across the lagoon. Isis rose into the air and followed him.

The strange procession soared out over the Aegean, headed toward the remote island where the Titan had been originally imprisoned. When they finally reached it, Captain Marvel began to descend toward the opening of a large cave that was located in the island's interior. As Isis watched from above Marvel disappeared with the giant down into the yawning hole.

A couple of minutes later he reappeared, his burden gone. He flew up to Isis's side.

"How about some help sealing that hole up forever?" he asked her. "We don't want that brute ever getting out of there again!"

Isis smiled and nodded. "_O Mother Earth, assist me now, to block that cave across your brow!" _she cried.

As they both watched, the hills and rocks around the cave opening began to dislodge themselves, creating a rumbling avalanche that soon filled the huge hole in completely. Soon, all that remained was a large dust cloud rising from where the cave mouth had been.

"That should hold him!" Isis pronounced.

"I should say so!" Marvel agreed.

# # #

That evening, as the sun began to set over the little village of Oia, Captain Marvel and Isis sat on either side of a small table they had placed on a private whitewashed patio near the edge of the cliff away from the tourist crowds. A sumptuous dinner meal consisting of many local Greek delicacies was spread across the table.

Oia's sunsets were rumored to be some of the most spectacular on Earth, and the one that night was so far not a disappointment.

"I hope the Elders don't mind us lingering here a short while longer," Marvel was saying. "This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It would be a real shame for us to be here and not get a chance to enjoy it for a little while – especially after all the work we just did!"

Isis smiled. "I don't think they'll mind," she replied. "And even if they do, I'll be glad to act as your defense council!"

Marvel returned her smile. They both lifted their glasses, full of the red wine that Santorini was world famous for, and clinked them together.


End file.
